RECUPERATION (DIURNAL), 2008

Oil, acrylic and Galkyd on three panels, 80 x 109 inches

The convalescing Cedar of Lebanon in Recuperation simultaneously embodies bleak realism and hopeful romanticism. It is a metaphor for the damage we do to ourselves and how we try to recover. Pale atmosphere alternates with raw flesh color, suggesting both cruelty and compassion. In 2006, I visited Isola Bella on Lago Maggiore in Italy. That summer, the gardens were in disarray caused by a freak tornado, including an uprooted ancient Cedar of Lebanon. Maintenance workers and gardeners had propped up this huge specimen with pulleys, slings, and guy ropes. Bandages wrapping limbs and sprinkler systems suspended in branches contributed further to its potential resuscitation. At the time of making this painting, they were still waiting for the results.

I photographed this poignant spectacle partly because it coincided with my prior research into landscapes of ruin, especially those devastated by war. That summer, the world watched as the 2006 Lebanon War decimated the country, all while the larger war in Iraq raged. The Lebanese town of Qana (or Cana) was attacked for the second time in a decade and suffered extraordinary numbers of civilian deaths.

RECUPERATION (DIURNAL) detail

Oil, acrylic and Galkyd on three panels, 80 x 109 inches

RECUPERATION (DIURNAL) detail

RECUPERATION (DIURNAL) detail

RECUPERATION (DIURNAL) detail

RECUPERATION (NOCTURNAL) 2008

Oil, acrylic and Galkyd on three panels, 80 x 109 inches

The convalescing Cedar of Lebanon in Recuperation simultaneously embodies bleak realism and hopeful romanticism. It is a metaphor for the damage we do to ourselves and how we try to recover. Pale atmosphere alternates with raw flesh color, suggesting both cruelty and compassion. In 2006, I visited Isola Bella on Lago Maggiore in Italy. That summer, the gardens were in disarray caused by a freak tornado, including an uprooted ancient Cedar of Lebanon. Maintenance workers and gardeners had propped up this huge specimen with pulleys, slings, and guy ropes. Bandages wrapping limbs and sprinkler systems suspended in branches contributed further to its potential resuscitation. At the time of making this painting, they were still waiting for the results.

I photographed this poignant spectacle partly because it coincided with my prior research into landscapes of ruin, especially those devastated by war. That summer, the world watched as the 2006 Lebanon War decimated the country, all while the larger war in Iraq raged. The Lebanese town of Qana (or Cana) was attacked for the second time in a decade and suffered extraordinary numbers of civilian deaths.

RECUPERATION (NOCTURNAL) detail

CANA (QANA) 2007

Oil and acrylic on two panels, 80 x 72 inches

There is the falsely mystical view of art that assumes a kind of supernatural inspiration, a possession by universal forces unrelated to questions of power and privilege or the artist's relation to bread and blood. In this view, the channel of art can only become clogged and misdirected by the artist's concern with merely temporary and local disturbances. The song is higher than the struggle. Adrienne Rich, from Blood, Bread and Poetry (1986)

Cana is named after two towns: the town where Christ’s first miracle occurred, where water was turned into wine; and the Lebanese town of Qana, where blood has flowed instead of wine. Qana is probably not the same as the biblical town of Cana, but I am drawn to the confluence of references to miracle and massacre.

Numerous and profound injustices abound in the Middle East, often leading to invasions and intifadas. In July, 2006, Israel went to war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. More than a thousand people, most of whom were Lebanese civilians, were killed. Two thirds of them were children. Almost a million Lebanese and between 300,000 and 500,000 Israelis were displaced. The infrastructure of Lebanon was severely compromised, and especially ruined in Beirut. We have seen similar repeated destruction in Gaza.

The town of Qana was particularly hit by the Israeli Defense Forces during Operation Change Direction, resulting in 28 deaths, 16 of them children with 13 missing. Human Rights Watch warned that "consistent failure to distinguish combatants and civilians is a war crime” and Amnesty International described Israel’s subsequent inquiry as flawed and "a whitewash." Ten years earlier, the IDF conducted Operation Grapes of Wrath in Lebanon, in which over 150 civilians were killed during the fighting. Again, Qana suffered extraordinarily. One hundred civilians alone were killed in the April 18, 1996 attack on the UN Compound there.

No matter where such massacres are occurring or why, the world often stands by. We go about our daily business, stepping over the limbs and ignoring the stains on our table.

CANA (QANA) 2007 detail

DISGUISED RELIEF, 1999

Oil and acrylic on three panels, 80 x 93 inches

And the mixt multitude that was among them fell a lusting: and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick: But now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all, beside this manna, before our eyes.

– King James Bible, Numbers 11: 4-6

Both Disguised Relief and Caritas/Workfare address the invisibility of “wicked” problems such as poverty. The two works alsofuse my love of Flemish painting with my dismay at our tolerance of poverty and the contorted solutions we sanction. According to UN figures released just days ago, about 805 million, or one in nine of the people on this planet suffers from hunger.

These works were inspired by two paintings: Juan de Flandes' Marriage at the Feast of Canaand The Life and Miracles of Saint Godelieve altarpiece depicting a benefactress of the poor. The legend conveys how Godelieve's charity was considered excessive or inappropriate by her prosperous parents and wicked mother-in-law. Against her parents' wishes, she fed delicacies prepared for a count's feast to the poor; and, increasing her mother-in-law's suspicion, she persuaded the crows not to eat the growing grain. On the verge of being exposed, the bread she distributed turned to wood shavings. Her beneficence had to be camouflaged.

The reverse happens with Christ at Cana, site of his first miracle. Where there is no wine, he creates some, (and, again, of the best quality), a public display of plenitude and altruism. Juan de Flandes' painting shows the moment before the miracle, an empty table prepared to receive. The table in Disguised Relief is also empty, waiting for a miracle that seems endlessly deferred. Shavings drift down and settle like manna from heaven, dubious offerings from trickle down economies. Are they truly sustenance? Are they wood, bread or flesh? Must the poor work even harder to earn even less? Must they cannibalize themselves while others gorge? The USA Census Bureau declared that roughly one in seven Americans were poor in 2010. Underpaid workers are forced to choose between rent, health care and adequate diet. In developing countries, the poor do not even have this "luxury" of choice.

DISGUISED RELIEF, 1999

Center panel of three panels

DISGUISED RELIEF, 1999

Detail of linen napkin

DISGUISED RELIEF, 1999

Detail of linen napkin

CARITAS 1999

Oil and acrylic on three wood panels, each 12 inches square.

CARITAS 2009

Center panel of three wood panels. Oil and acrylic. 12 inches square.

CARITAS 1999

Left panel of three wood panels. Oil and acrylic. 12 inches square.

RESURGENCY 2008

Oil and acrylic on panel, 60 x 96 inches

In Resurgency, a Cedar of Lebanon stands in front of Ghaziyeh, a town destroyed by an IDF air strike. A flowering branch from The Hero Rustam Slays the Witch of the Cosmic Illusion, an illustration attributed to Qadîmî for Firdawsî’s Book of Kings, blooms amidst a panoramic composite landscape of rubble in Ghaziyeh, Lebanon. The Cedar here is a funereal silhouette. The victims here are not an illusion.

The Cedar of Lebanon is Lebanon’s state symbol. The practical and symbolic uses of the Cedar of Lebanon throughout history are intertwined with death and renewal. Its resin was used in Egyptian mummification and its sawdust found in pharaoh’s tombs. The Sumerian epic Gilgamesh treats cedar groves as dwellings of the gods. Moses ordered Jewish priests to use its bark to treat leprosy. Its wood was used to build King Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem and was once burned to announce the New Year.